African Population Projection Falls
By David Briscoe
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, September 26, 1998; 6:00 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Population experts now believe that several African
countries may achieve zero population growth in just a few years. But
family planners are not cheering.
The reasons are gruesome and worrisome: populations devastated by AIDS
and further threatened with food shortages, water depletion, ecological
collapse and social chaos.
Family planners have been trying for decades to halt the population
explosion in countries projected to double or triple populations by
2050. But they didn't want it to happen this way. They don't want allies
that kill and destroy societies.
``A lot of countries will not see expected population increases because
of rising death rates,'' said Lester Brown, president of World Watch and
author of a new report on world population problems.
Revised United Nations projections for population growth will be out at
the end of October, and U.N. demographers confirm that the impact of
AIDS in some African countries will be dramatic, even ``unbelievable.''
AIDS, which killed 2.3 million adults and children last year, will not
slow worldwide population growth, however. That will reach 6 billion by
the middle of next year and is expected to rise to between 7.7 billion
and 11 billion by 2050.
(snip)
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Steve
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